When we start the episode, the Cohens are very excited to be talking about Ryan turning eighteen and becoming a man. You could say that him having a Bar Mitzvah already made him into a man, but the eighteenth birthday may be even more symbolic. You can vote, you can smoke, and you can sign up for the military. And with Ryan's family history, he is probably also aware that if he gets in trouble with the law, he could go to an actual jail instead of just juvie. It also means that should he decide to pout about how awful his life is in Newport, nobody can stop him from taking jobs in construction or on fishing boats.

Everybody wants to throw Ryan party to celebrate his milestone, but he is uninterested. He doesn't have fond memories of birthdays because his mom stopped taking him to the zoo and baking cakes and spent the time she saved getting drunk. The Cohens promise that it won't be a big to-do, which is sort of obvious because Ryan doesn't have a lot of friends, which is kind of surprising because he just seems to light up a room whenever he enters. I mean, who wouldn't want to be friends with somebody who is telling you what to do all the time and making you feel bad for acting your age?

At school, Summer is really worried about Marissa. Marissa hasn't been taking the breakup very well, and she has had trouble sleeping. Summer was also bothered by the fact that Marissa wasn't eating a lot, although I am not really sure how she was able to tell. And let's be honest, Summer isn't exactly asked to do the truffle shuffle (well, I hope not, but you never know with a dirty mind like Seth's) so her complaints that Marissa has eaten only four peanuts and a banana over the last couple of days don't seem that relevant. If Summer was so worried about Marissa eating properly why not set a good example and perhaps use that coffee she buys every morning to wash down a bran muffin or a granola bar?

Marissa is distracted the whole time this conversation is going on, because she is still scanning the halls to make sure that Ryan isn't nearby. Oh the irony. When she wanted to be close to Ryan, they were in different schools, but now that the two of them need space, they have to see each other every day. Summer notices Marissa ducks out when she sees Ryan, so Summer decides to step to Ryan herself and tells him that they can't avoid each other forever. It's too bad that the writers of the program couldn't give Ryan some lessons on avoidance. Perhaps if they work in a story line about how somebody on The Valley just found out their pregnant ex-girlfriend lied to them about a miscarriage we can all laugh at the self aware they are!

After school, Ryan decides to visit Sadie at Johnny's old house, perhaps to check on what Gwen Harper is doing with that money Ryan fought so hard for. When he gets there, we discover that Gwen has decided to sell the house and move to Ashland. I guess there are just too many memories in the old house, and when you have a chance to move so close to Southern Oregon University, how can you pass up a chance like that? I have to say, it's funny that Ryan got his ass kicked for no reason, but if Gwen is selling the house, why in the hell is Sadie knocking down walls in order to put a bar in the kitchen? I know that Sadie is poor, and therefore knows how to sand and grout with the best of them, but if you want to sell your house; you tend to avoid making such drastic changes. But of course Ryan knows construction, and is practically an architect, so everything will be OK now.

I don't know about you, but when I knock down a wall, I take out the cabinets first.

The next day, Seth comes into the pool house to let Ryan know that there was a little problem with keeping the party small. It was probably a little bit of overkill to rent out the entire Bait Shop since Ryan's entire invite list could have fit into one booth at IHOP, and although Seth is supposedly smart enough to get into Brown, he couldn't find an alternate way to print out invitations in quantities of less than 100. The bigger issue is if he should give one of those 95 extra invites to Marissa or not. You know, he doesn't want to invite her and have her think that he is still interested, but at the same time wants to avoid not inviting her and having her believe he is just a jerk who doesn't want to be friends.

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Posted by J-Unit on March 21, 2006 4:52 PM